There’s no bad weather, only lousy residences : Mapping of buildingswith risk of high temperatures in Kalmar County's largest cities

Global warming risks overthrowing the Earth's climate system, which would mean thatmany communities need to be reshaped and adapted to a new climate. The PublicHealth Agency of Sweden has run a project during the years 2017-2019 that aims toincrease society's ability to identify, prevent and manage harmful heat in existingbuildings. The project focuses on covering the occurrence and developing measures toprevent heat stress in both urban outdoor- and indoor environments. The agency has commissioned a GIS method which, based on the buildings' groundcover, aims to identify areas that are at risk of developing harmful temperatures. Themethod is based on first calculating the total land area of the cities in order to be able tocalculate the proportion of the area covered by high vegetation, hardened surfaces,building bodies and low vegetation. Based on this calculation, areas with a highproportion of paved surfaces and building bodies as well as a low proportion of highvegetation have been identified as areas with a higher risk of developing harmfultemperatures. In this essay, the method has been used to identify risk areas in KalmarCounty's largest cities; Kalmar, Västervik and Oskarshamn. High temperatures can be dangerous for all people, but elderly people are highlighted asa particularly vulnerable group as they have a reduced ability to regulate bodytemperature. Therefore the survey of the thesis has been supplemented with data onwhere people over the age of 65 live in relation to the risk areas in order to make furtherpriorities in where the measures are needed the most. The conclusion is that the need for cooling measures in the mapped cities is greatest inthe urban centers, as the high density of urban areas there provides good conditions fordeveloping high temperatures while a large part of the old population live in thesecentral areas. Several industrial areas have been identified as risk areas in all mappedcities, but there the need for cooling measures is less as they are usually located on theoutskirts of the cities and lack residents over 65 years. The exception is the OldIndustrial Area in Kalmar, whose central location and the circular design of Kalmarindicate that high temperatures develop here at night, which can drive the urban heatisland in the city